Indian food safety regulators have filed a lawsuit against Nestle India for selling Maggi noodles in the country with unsafe levels of lead.
The complaint was filed at a local court in the state of Uttar Pradesh after the local Food safety and Drug Administration (FDA) found that the noodles contained traces of lead at seven-times the safe level for consumption.
As reported in Reuters, a FDA official confirmed that the complaint also included Nestle's manufacturing unit, retailer selling the tainted packs, two company managers and Bollywood stars who promoted the snack.
Eariler in May, the government ordered Nestle to recall around 200,000 packs of Maggi noodles after finding monosodium glutamate (MSG) in a sample of the product.
The company previously stated that it does not add MSG to Maggi Noodles sold in India and believes that the authorities may have detected glutamate, which occurs naturally in many foods.
Also, Nestle contends that the FDA has investigated Maggi samples which reached the 'best-before' date in November last year and are not available in the market anymore.
Nestle said: "We regularly monitor all our raw material for lead, including testing by accredited laboratories which have consistently shown levels in Maggi noodles to be within permissible limits."
